Stockholm Backward
by Sonia
Summary: What bonds people together is often inexplicable
1. Default Chapter Title

Stockholm backward

By Sonia

Summary: What bonds two people together is often inexplicable.

Dedication: For Erin, Jaye, Jules and Sazzi for witnessing the moment that inspired this. For Patrick for continually pushing me out of my comfort zone. 

Author's note: Stockholm Syndrome is when a bond develops between the hostage and their captors. For overseas readers, SPOILER WARNING – some references to season five events. Warning – This story is rated PG-13 for language content.

Disclaimer: Not mine, never were, never will be. Just borrowing them and will return them in roughly the same shape I found them. Some of the quotes are taken directly from the episode "Helter Skelter".

"Your filofax makes an interesting read….passport biz…written on the day Rachel Goldstein was killed."

The diary fell back onto the desk, still open at April 15 1999, and my fate was sealed. Of course I denied the writing as being mine and he didn't believe me, looking at me as if I was some shitbag crim from the western suburbs.

He reckoned I would have had a better alibi, could have and should have been smarter. The business I have built up is testimony to the fact I am no dumb blonde and got where I have on my brains and not on my back.

This wasn't a time to take any crap – especially not from him. Stand your ground and take no prisoners.

"You can't prove one word," I said.

"I've got all the proof I need – move," he snarled.

" I could crucify you for this Christey."

"I said move."

The muzzle of the gun swims in and out of focus before me. They say your life flashes before your eyes and yeah, it does big time.

I know I've done some things in my life that I am definitely not proud of and would probably have me consigned to the fires of hell if any higher power was given half the chance. 

Do I have any regrets?

Who doesn't? 

~*~*~*~

Gravel crunched and then flew in all directions as the blue Ford skidded to a stop in front of the White Bay power station. 

He drags me out of the car and both of us are defiant, not wanting to let the other take advantage of the slightest flinch or blink of an eye.

"This is where you murdered Rachel." Christey's voice was getting lower and more dangerous by the second.

Where were the bloody cops when you needed them?

Our footsteps echo on the metal gantries and pigeons, their sleep disturbed by the intruders, scatter to safety, cooing their displeasure at being woken so abruptly.

Surely he wouldn't kill me. Passion fuels the accusing tone in his voice. He's definitely a feeler and a thinker this one – although he keeps it hidden pretty bloody well. This bloke is also a real operator and doesn't take any shit. All very attractive qualities.

Great, I'm here with a gun at my head being dragged about an old power station by a copper who has gone schizo and all I can do is perve on him like a lifesaver on Bondi Beach.

Get a bloody grip on yourself Charlie. 

We're both breathing harder now and still he accuses me of murdering her. What is going on here? I knew coppers could be single minded at times but this is getting ridiculous.

Christey started waving the gun in my face again and I knew there was only a tiny window of opportunity before there was a second death at White Bay power station.

Shoving him out of the way, the gun flew out of Jack's hands – bet he didn't think I could do that. Hell, I didn't even think I could do that. I'm usually a much better operator with the gun in MY hands, not someone else's.

The clank of metal on the floor reminded me that I had to run. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Christey swing down from the railing and regather his firearm. 

It's the hunter and the hunted. The tension and adrenaline, oh so real and electric courses through my veins.

A narrow corridor provides me with a momentary respite but soon his shadow is looming large and I run again only to find myself wrestled to the ground.

"Christey, don't – it was Denton," I gasped. Shit, surely he can still listen to reason here.

"Liar."

His hands under my arms, Christey drags me along one of the walkways in the building. What is he trying to prove here?

Grief and rage flood his voice as he tells me about Rachel Goldstein's last minutes. Again I plead with him to think about how he is going to feel when all this is over and he finds out he stuffed up.

The metal of the gun is deadly cold against my jawbone as Christey tells me how much he loved Goldstein.

No man I ever met has gone this far to reinforce his love for a woman and a dead woman at that. I have got to get this right otherwise I'll be passing on Jack's regards to Rachel – providing the man upstairs will take me in. I do something I thought I would never do – beg – beg for my life.

The faint sound of another set of footsteps gives me hope. At this point I would be happy to see the Police Commissioner himself enter the building.

A gunshot echoed through the old building and I froze.

"Jack, it wasn't Charlie Driscoll, it was Graham Denton…got a confession from him," the other man yelled.

Jack's footsteps faded away from me. 

I turned around, using the railing to help myself up. Gasping for breath, I saw them walking away from me. I was sweating bullets and my heart was still racing. Christey walked out of the power station and took a piece of me with him.

Every Moriarty has their Sherlock Holmes and now I've got mine.

~*~*~*~

Mum always said you could always attract a man's attention through clothes and makeup. I find sitting in his car and holding a gun to his head is so much easier.

It's not as if I'm asking Christey to take me shopping at Tiffany's. All I want him to do is slip down to the Sydney Police Centre and substitute a little bit of evidence for me. It's really nothing major – the evidence just implicates me in a murder trial. 

He makes the swap and I forget all about our little game of chasing in the power station. Simple - except for this really nasty habit of Christey's where he plays by the book most of the time.

Why is he being so bloody disagreeable about this? I've got enough problems with people inside my own company trying to topple me without Jack being so stubborn on this.

Then there was the rather unfortunate death of an informant of his which has got Christey all bitter and twisted. There's no need to take it out on me Jack – just because your gun has suddenly been linked in with all the evidence.

Speaking of evidence, he still hasn't made that swap and the court date is getting closer. It is just a little bit of jewelry, a serpent pin in fact. Temptation from another snake lead Adam and Eve to behave out of character, so why won't this silver snake tempt Christey to save his own backside here?

All I would have to do is go to Internal Affairs about our little excursion to the power station and his goose would be pate. He knows it and I know it. So, why is he dragging this out and making it worse for himself?

Weeks later it's another deserted warehouse with bullets - we really ought to stop meeting like this. This time he's been backed into a corner and is trying to save my life and his from some dickhead intent on killing both of us by the look of it.

Is it destiny that our paths keep crossing like this? If continually getting tangled up with the same copper is my destiny, and then I want those tarot cards re-dealt.

Getting thrown over the edge of a cliff has started me thinking about a lot of things – Jack Christey is just one of them. I have begun planning to reclaim my business and my crown. No one ever plays games with Charlie Driscoll and gets away with it.

I am the one to play games here and control the action. I always play hard and it's definitely for keeps – just ask that loser Denton.

Whoever said opposites attract should have been shot. Where did that come from and why am I allowing it to develop into any sort of emotion? Shit, who would believe it anyway? I know I don't. The mob queen and the copper. Fucking hell.

At least Christey gives me a run for my money where others haven't been able to hack the pace. Is this some sort of Twilight Zone totally backward version of the Stockholm Syndrome happening here?

I think this rehabilitation thing is starting to mess with my head. I know a few judges who would fall off their benches in hysteria at that thought.

If you want to take another way of looking at it, the one good thing about the cliff fall and being away from the business at the moment is that it gives me the chance to regain my strength mentally and physically.

When I reclaim my empire and begin plans for a new life there will be no room for error and I will need to be at the height of my powers.

I suppose when you think about it that snake I wore pinned to my lapel brought about my downfall a few days ago. Being lured to that cliff by a total amateur was stupid play on my part. Never knew what hit me until it was too fucking late.

The time will soon come for me to make a bid for freedom. No doubt it will bring Jack Christey back through my life in some way, shape or form.

Just like that snake, you never know where I will strike next. I'll be back Jack – count on it.

~Finis~


	2. Stockholm Revisited

Part 1 - Stockholm Backward

Part 2 - Stockholm Revisited

Disclaimers etc in Stockholm Backward

A balcony in South America is a million miles away from Sydney Harbour but the way I am feeling now it might as well be across the street.

My computer screen stares back at me – the headlines from the Daily Telegraph scream at me – "Top Cop Slain". As much as I want to get on with my banking I keep returning to that web site, defying it to tell me that it's some stupid prank or someone else. 

There is no fucking way in hell it could be anyone else. The picture of his craggy face and the quotes from Chief Inspector Hawker tell me everything.

There had been so many times I had wished Jack Christey dead and now that it has happened all I want to do is …fuck it . . .I'm not sure what I want to do or feel here. 

Hell Charlie, you've lost the only two men in your life who could ever give you a run for your money – your brother and John Edward Christey. No one else was game to take you on.

I know I wouldn't rate a phone call from his daughter, any of the other cops or my former employees these days but it would have been better finding out that way than reading Christey's obituary on line.

I could have given that reporter a quote or two.

He had a daughter – could never picture Jack as a dad. The paper said she was in the cops as well. I wonder if she is as stubborn as her dad – probably. She's probably got his kick arse temper too. Bloody good thing I never had any kids as they would have been finishing what her old man and I started. 

Couldn't really picture Jack as anything other than a cop trying to bring me down or take me out because I masterminded the passport scam that contributed to his girlfriend's murder. Shit Christey, you should have gotten the fuck over it. People die in our line of work whether we like it or not.

No matter what side of that bloody badge of yours we're on Jack, people die.

My relationship with my brother was as simple as a brother and sister relationship ever gets but the dynamics between Christey and I are . . .were far more complex. I can't think of him in the past tense, he's still too much a part of who I have become.

Shit I can't believe he's dead. All the times I tried to have him killed and the bastard was inconsiderate enough not to die. Come to think of it, he's tried to kill me more than once too. 

More lives than a cat that bloke but someone should have told him that even cats only get nine. 

I still have my sources in Sydney and I have heard from them it was fucking stupid play on Christey's part to go after both Clive Tyler and Tony Agostinas. If I still had business interests in Sydney or anywhere else for that matter, I would have taken Tyler out of play and saved Christey the trouble or at least cut down his workload. 

It would have been nice going head to head with Jack again. It means we would both be feeling more alive than what we are right now. Enforced retirement shits me to tears.

My health has deteriorated in recent months and it looks like I will be stuck in this bloody chair forever. It's a bit hard being a feared crime queen when you have people looking down on you.

I might not be easily intimidated but when your empire has crumbled into ruins and been snapped up by once bit players such as Tyler and Agostinas, you seriously wonder where your life is going and was it all worth it in the first place.

Even though I have taken lives it's all been a business arrangement and I have never and will never consider topping myself. Anyone who hears reports of me dying by my own hand should take a fucking long look at the evidence. It won't be suicide, it'll be murder.

Then there is that shitbag Agi. 

Christey might have been unorthodox and played fucking hardball a little too well for my liking but at least you knew where you stood. 

Agi was corrupt and stupid which made him fucking dangerous.

At least Christey had the sense to shoot him before that dickead took Jack out. Saved me the trouble anyway. 

Whatever it was between Jack and I brought out the darkest and the best in our characters.

This whole shitfight on the waterfront has to be far more complex than just Jack going after a corrupt cop and trying to take out Tyler and Agostinas. Christey's biggest problem is ….was having causes and fighting them. Bloody single minded prick who kept tilting at windmills. Don't think they would have put that in the paper Charlie.

He went on that boat for a reason. 

Whoever set loose the chain of events that put Jack on the receiving end of that fuckwit's gun should know one thing.

They're mine.

Whoever you are – you're going down and you're going down hard.


	3. Stockholm's Zenith

Part 1 - Stockholm Backward

Part 3 – Stockholm's Zenith

Disclaimers etc in part 1

There was no sender's address on the envelope.

The post mark was from Leichhardt and there was nothing inside except a clipping from a newspaper.

How the hell anyone in Sydney knew where to find me in South America was anyone's guess. The handwriting on the envelope looked too neat to be from any bloke I knew. It couldn't have been my former assistant - she died in a car crash on the Pacific Highway six months ago.

Fucking hell that clipping was interesting reading.

Detective Senior Constable Mick Reilly appealing his dismissal from the Police Service in the Industrial Relations Commission. Sacked because of a – how the hell did they put it – loss of Commissioner's confidence. Or to get that out of lawyer speak, Reilly got the bullet because he was a corrupt bastard

Admittedly that bastard saved my life in the power station when Christey had a gun to my head and was accusing me of murdering Goldstein. Reilly never knew how good his timing was that day.

So, Reilly got himself hooked up with Agi Fatsianas and covered up Agi shooting one of his informants. 

The reasons for Reilly's actions seemed to be he was trying to help his sister's husband avoid a stint in the slammer. From there things got silly at a rate of knots as the more Reilly tried to make sure things were going to be okay for his sister and her family, the harder Agi applied the thumb screws to Mick not to turn him in. 

The article told all about Agi's links to organised crime and how the crackdown by the water police led to Agi shooting Jack and pushing him off that boat to die in the Harbour. 

Fucking hell – if you want to get right down to it, Christey was murdered by one of his own. Not directly but Reilly was responsible for Jack being on that boat and that was all I needed to know. 

First Christey going off the deep end after Goldstein died and then Reilly getting in way over his head to protect his sister. Knowing Christey, he had probably gone off after Agi to protect Reilly. 

Shit – those detectives would be better off having their hearts put on ice – they are absolutely useless when they try to think and feel at the same time. Then again, they are men and incapable of doing two things at once.

Getting to Sydney was the easy part as I'd kept a few little souvenirs from the passport scam. A girl should never leave home without a couple of extra passports and credit cards.

As the plane took off for its long haul flight, I knew only one thing was certain – Reilly was going down and he had to go down hard. Christey's memory demanded it and I expected it.

~*~*~*~

A call from a contact in Customs let him know that his quarry had made it into Sydney without incident. She might not have been travelling under her own name but the descriptions he provided his contact would have made her pretty easy to spot.

Being a law abiding citizen had always been so easy up until a couple of years ago but there had been two turning points in his life causing him to question everything he once stood for.

From then on nightmares had been his constant companion and he could see one way out of the hell he was living in. 

His nightmares featured three things – glass, bullets and blood. Some had tried to comfort him after the nightmares but there could be no comfort for anyone until he completed what he had to do.

Justice was a crock and there came a time in everyone's life where they had to find their own answers instead of hoping the system would provide them. He had done his research and planning. There could be no second chances. He only had this moment in time to execute his plan and right some age old wrongs. 

He still maintained a relatively normal life, going to work and occasionally down to the pub with his colleagues, but the person who lived that life belonged to another, perhaps simpler time. Now there was no focus to his days except the pursuit of a nemesis he never expected to have.

Following the prey she sought would lead him to her. He wondered briefly how rusty her surveillance skills were and whether he would be spotted. 

An anonymous letter to South America set the dice rolling and this was definitely game on.

~*~*~*~

I still couldn't quite believe Christey was dead and wanted proof the arrogant prick was out of my life, not that I needed any reminders about why what I had returned to Sydney to do was the right thing. A visit to an Eastern Suburbs cemetery confirmed it. They had buried him next to Goldstein. Fucking hell.

Better get out of here Charlie, you've got work to do.

~*~*~*~

Getting the full story from Reilly's sister Jess was a little too easy – someone should have warned her not to be so trusting of people.

Surely, she should have known that no former instructor of her brother's from the Academy would be coming around to find out how he was doing.

The wheelchair didn't even phase her. She probably just thought it was a part of the new age touchy feely police environment. 

She told me how her husband had gotten mixed up in some petty stuff and how she had begged Mick to try and help. For the sake of her son, she said.

Reilly had resisted her pleas at first, she said. Then he realised the only hope of young Max having a stable upbringing was to try and keep his parents together and his dad out of jail. Dumb ass move Reilly, totally dumb ass move. You are a cop – you are not supposed to fucking well think and feel. 

The little brat probably would have done just fine. Her little boy looked a bit like his uncle. Poor kid. 

I said I wanted to catch up with Mick so we could discuss old times and how his case in the Commission was going. Then Jess unwittingly signed her brother's death warrant. She told me where he was going to be that morning. 

~*~*~*~

I finally found Reilly at a café in Bronte. He had just said goodbye to the woman who replaced Goldstein. I had seen her once or twice with Christey, thought she was a lightweight. He seemed to like her though. I wondered if Christey ever got tangled up with her or whether he was too hung up on Goldstein's memory. 

Like I've always said Jack, sentiment in our line of work can be fatal and you should have just gotten the fuck over it. 

It seemed appropriate this showdown would take place in the Eastern Suburbs – my former powerbase.

Some would say I had come to reclaim my empire, I would say it was more a case of tidying up some unfinished business. 

~*~*~*~

He watched her get out of the non-descript Camry sedan, a bodybuilder type helping her settle into the wheelchair and watching as she propelled herself towards the café. 

It didn't surprise him she was travelling with some sort of hired muscle – particularly with her failing health.

Another woman said goodbye to Mick Reilly, who was sitting at an outside table. They were smiling and laughing as they hugged. The other woman drove away.

He watched his quarry push her wheelchair towards the tables, sunshine bouncing off the wheelchair's metal frame. Beams of light began to bounce off another metal object.

Oh shit.

The bitch had pulled a gun.

Checking he was armed, he knew he had to act or it would be too late and he would miss his chance.

~*~*~*~

Reilly's stunned expression told me he was unarmed. I didn't care. Whatever bond I had with Christey, no matter how bizarre and twisted had brought me to this point. Whoever thought up the definition and criteria for Stockholm Syndrome all those years ago would have had a fucking field day with Jack and I. 

Christey's memory must be avenged.

Mick unleashed that thousand volt smile of his and tried to charm is way out of it and negotiate with me. I am not to be negotiated with. Christey would never have negotiated – he would have said to take my best shot and then given me his. 

Well Mickey, you have definitely shown me you're a mouse not a man. You are gorgeous and you might have lived your life through your dick but this is one time your good looks won't save you.

Squeezing the trigger was so easy. You'd think after all these years as a career crim it would get harder and what was left of my conscience would kick in. Not a snowball's chance in hell of that happening.

I had gotten Reilly for Jack and then someone whom I had never considered a threat had got me.

I never heard the click – just the bang. In my last moment of clarity I realised who the handwriting on the envelope delivered to me weeks ago in South America belonged to. A signature on my record of interview after Goldstein's death came back to haunt me. It was a take down worthy of Christey.

Jeff Hawker dropped his Glock on the roadway, the bodies of Michael Lionel Reilly and Charlie Elizabeth Driscoll never leaving his sight. Sitting down and leaning against a tree, he began to cry.

The nightmares were over.


End file.
